Today, many different kinds of disposable absorbent articles are being manufactured on a plurality of unique machines. Disposable absorbent articles are currently being manufactured and sold for use by infants, toddlers and adults. Such disposable absorbent articles include infant diapers, child training pants, menstrual pants, adult incontinence undergarments, guards for men, briefs, etc. Many machines are limited to producing a distinct disposable absorbent article in a particular size. Some machines can be retrofitted or modified to produce a smaller or larger size disposable absorbent article but the machines cannot easily be retrofitted to produce disposable articles that are different beyond just their size.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,361,045 discloses apparatuses and methods to address the above challenge. This patent specifically discloses apparatuses and methods for manufacturing several distinct disposable absorbent articles on a single machine. The '045 patent discloses a single machine that begins with a fundamental building block of absorbent material with flexibility downstream to form different disposable absorbent articles. But the '045 patent fails to teach apparatuses and methods for manufacturing multiple different articles wherein one of the articles is an absorbent article and another of the articles is a non-absorbent article (that does not build upon the initial fundamental building block of absorbent material).
There is still a need for machines and methods that can produce a disposable absorbent article and a disposable non-absorbent article. At least some of the embodiments of the present invention address this need.